F 73 
.62 

.04 P52 
Copy 1 



ORATION 



DBLIVERED IN THE 



OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, 



WENDELL PHILLIPS, 



June 14, 1876. 
(revised by himself.) 



IT WAS IN THIS BUILDING THAT MR. PHILLIPS MADE HIS LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS, 
DEC. 26, 1883. 



PRICE, TEN CENTS. 



BOSTON: 

SOLD AT THE OLD SOUTH. 

1884. 



73 
6r 



ORATION. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

Why are we here to-day ? Why should this relic, a hun- 
dred years old, stir your pulses to-day so keenly ? We 
sometimes find a community or an individual with their 
hearts set on some old roof or great scene ; and as we look 
on, it seems to us an exaggerated feeling, a fond conceit, an 
unfounded attachment, too emphatic value set on some 
ancient thing or spot which memory endears to them. But 
we have a right to-day — this year we have a right beyond 
all question, and with no possibility of exaggerating the 
importance of the hour — to ask the world itself to pause 
when this nation completes the first hundred years of its life ; 
because these forty millions of people have at last achieved 
what no race, no nation, no age hitherto has succeeded in 
doing. We have founded a Republic on the unlimited 
suffrage of the millions We have actually worked out the 
problem that man, as God created him, may be trusted with 
self-government. We have shown the world that a Church 
without a Bishop, and a State without a King is an actual, 
real, every-day possibility. Look back over the history of 
the race ; where will you find a chapterthat precedes us in 
that achievement ? Greece had her republics, but they were 
the republics of one freeman and ten slaves ; and the battle 
of Marathon was fought by slaves unchained from the door- 
posts of their masters' houses. Italy had her republics : they 
were the republics of wealth, and skill, and family, limited 
and aristocratic. She had not risen to a sublime faith in 
man. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and 
landholders, trusting the helm of state to property and 
education. And all these which, at their best, held but a 
million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in 
the ocean of time. 

A hundred years ago, our fathers announced this sublime. 



and as it seemed then, foolhardy declaration, — that God in- 
tended all men to be free and equal: all men, without 
restriction, without qualification, without limit. A hundred 
years have rolled away since that venturous declaration ; and 
to-day, with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with forty 
millions of people, with two wars behind her, with the sub- 
lime achievement of having grappled with the fearful disease 
that threatened her central life, and broken four millions of 
fetters, the great Republic, stronger than ever, launches into 
the second century of her existence. The history of the 
world has no such chapter, in its breadth, its depth, its 
significance, or its bearing on future history. Well may we 
claim that this centennial year is the baptism of the human 
race into a new hope for humanity. Are we not entitled, 
then, coming with the sheaves of such a harvest in our hands, 
to say to the world, " Behold the blessing of God on our 
right faith in the human race ! " Well, gentlemen, if that is 
sober prose, without one tittle of exaggeration, without one 
fond conceit borrowed from our kindred with the actors or 
from our birth in these streets, — if that is the sober record,— 
with how much pride, with what a thrill, with what tender 
and loyal reverence, may we not hunt up and cherish, and 
guard from change or desecration, the spot where this 
marvellous enterprise began — the roof under which its first 
councils were held — where the air still trembles and burns 
with Otis and Sam Adams ? 

Except the Holy City, is there any more memorable or 
sacred place on the face of the earth than the cradle of such 
a change ? Athens has her Acropolis, but the Greek can 
point to no such immediate and distinct results. Her influence 
passes into the web and woof of history, mixed with a score 
of other elements ; and it needs a keen eye to follow it. 
London has her Palace and Tower, and her St. Stephen's 
Chapel ; but the human race owes her no such memories. 
France has spots marked by the sublimest devotion ; but the 
pilgrimage and the Mecca of the man who believes and hopes 
for the human race is not to Paris. It is to the seaboard 
cities of the great Republic. And when the flag was assailed, 
when the merchant waked up from his gain, the scholar from 



his studies, and the regiments marched one by one through 
the streets, which were the pavements that thrilled under 
their footsteps ? What walls did they salute as the regi- 
mental flags floated by to Gettysburg and Antietam ? These ! 
Our boys carried down to the battle-fields the memory of 
State Street, and Faneuil Hall, and the Old South Church. 

We had a signal prominence in those early days. It was 
not our merit ; it was an accident, perhaps. But it was a 
great accident in our favor that the British Parliament chose 
Boston as the first and prominent object of its wrath. It 
was on the men of Boston that Lord North visited his re- 
venge. It was our port that was to be shut, and its com- 
merce annihilated. It was Sam Adams and John Hancock 
who enjoy the everlasting reward of being the only names 
excepted from the royal proclamation of forgiveness. 

It was only an accident ; but it was an accident which, 
in the stirring history of the most momentous change the 
world has seen, placed Boston in the van. Naturally, there- 
fore, in our streets and neighborhood came the earliest 
collision between England and the Colonies. Here Sam 
Adams, the ablest and ripest statesman God gave to the 
epoch, forecast those measures which welded thirteen Col- 
onies into one thunderbolt, and launched it at George the 
Third. Here Otis magnetized every boy into a desperate 
rebel. Here the fit successors of Knox and Hugh Peters 
consecrated their pulpits to the defence of that doctrine of 
the freedom and sacredness of man, which the State bor- 
rowed so directly from the Christian Church. The towers 
of the North Church rallied the farmers to the Lexington 
and Concord fights ; and these old walls echoed the people's 
shout, when Adams brought them word that Gov. Hutchin- 
son surrendered, and. withdrew the red-coats. Lingering 
here still, are the echoes of those clashing sabres and jing- 
ling spurs that dreamt Warren could be awed to silence. 
Otis's blood immortalizes State Street, just below where 
Attucks fell (our first martyr), and just above where zealous 
patriots made a teapot of the harbor. 

It was a petty town, of some twenty thousand inhabi- 
tants ; but " the rays of royal indignation collected upon it 



served only to illuminate, and could not consume." Almost 
every one of its houses had a legend. Every public build- 
ino- hid what was treasonable debate, or bore bullet-marks 
or bloodshed, — evidence of royal displeasure. It takes a 
stout heart to step out of a crowd and risk the chances of 
support, when failure is death. The strongest, proudest, 
most obstinate race and kingdom on one side : a petty town 
the assailant, — its weapons, ideas; its trust, God and the 
right ; its old-fashioned men patiently arguing with cannon 
and regiments, blood the seal of the debate, and every stone, 
and wall, and roof, and doorway witness forever of the angry 
tyrant and sturdy victim. 

Now, gentlemen, man is not a mere animal, to eat, and 
sleep, and gain, and lay up, and enjoy, and pass away to his 
fathers. If we had been only that; if the North had been 
a peddler race, as the South supposed, not willing to risk 
sixpence for an idea, — no Democratic lawyers in yonder 
Court Street would have shut up their doors, put their keys 
in their pockets, and asked of Gov. Andrew a commission, 
when that piece of bunting was fired upon near Fort Sumpter! 
It was only six feet square of cotton ; it was only a few stars 
and stripes ; it was only an insult offered to the sentiment of 
twenty millions of people. But it made Democrats and Re- 
publicans forget their differences, and a million of men crowd 
down to the Gulf. It was only a sentiment. But what does 
it feed on ? Ascend one of those lofty buildings above Chi- 
cago, and grow weary in counting her crowd of masts and 
her miles of warehouses ; and when you have done it. you 
remember that the sagacity and the thrift of three hundred 
thousand men have created that great centre of industry, and 
there comes to your mind perhaps sooner than anything else, 
the old lullaby, — 

" How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour. 
And gather honey all the day 
From every opening flower." 

It is industry ; it is thrift ; it is comfort ; it is wealth. 
But on Bunker Hill let somebody point out to you the church- 
tower whose lantern told Paul Revere that Middlesex was to 



be invaded. Search till your eye rests on this tiny spire, 
which trembled once when the mock Indian whoop bade 
England defiance. There is the elm where Washington first 
drew his sword. Here Winter Hill, whose cannon-ball struck 
Brattle Street Church. At your feet the sod is greener for 
the blood of Warren, which settled it forever that no more 
laws were to be made for us in London. The thrill you feel 
is that scntimeut which, in 1862, made twenty million men, 
who had wrangled for forty years, close up their angry ranks, 
and carry that insulted bunting "to the Gulf," treading down 
dissensions and prejudices harder to conquer than Confederate 
cannon. We cannot afford to close any school which teaches 
such lessons. 

Go ask the Londoner, crowded into small space, what 
number of pounds laid down on a square foot, what necessi- 
ties of business, would induce him to pull down the Tower, 
and build a counting-house on its site! Go ask Paris what 
they will take from some business corporation for the spot 
where Mirabeau and Danton, or, later down, Lamartine saved 
the great flag of the tri-color from being drenched in the 
blood of their fellow-citizens ! What makes Boston a history } 
Not so many men, not so much commerce. It is ideas. You 
might as well plough it with salt, and remove bodily into the 
more healthy elevation of Brookline or Dorchester, but for 
State Street, Faneuil Hall, and the Old South ! 

What does Boston mean.? Since 1630, the living fibre, 
running through history, which owns that name, means jeal- 
ousy of power, unfettered speech, keen sense of justice, readi- 
ness to champion any good cause. That is the Boston Laud 
suspected, North hated, and the negro loved. If you destroy 
the scenes which perpetuate that Boston, then rebaptize her 
Cottonville or Shoetown. Don't belittle these memories ; 
they lie long hid, but only to grow stronger. You mobbed 
John Brown meetings in i860, and seemed to forget him in 
1861 ; but the boys in blue, led by that very mob, wearing 
epaulets, marched from State Street to the Gulf, because 
"John Brown's soul was marching on." That and the flag — 
only two memories, two sentiinejits — led the ranks. 

My friend has told you that the church has removed its 



altar: we submit. God is not worshipped in temples builded 
with men's hands ; and when their tower lifted itself in proud 
beauty to the heavens, and varied stone and rich woods fur- 
nished a new shelter for the descendants of Eckley, and Prince, 
and Sewall, and the others that worshipped here, the conse- 
cration that the Puritans gave these walls — to Christ and 
the Church — was annulled. 

But these walls received as real a consecration when 
Adams and Otis dedicated them to liberty. We do not come 
here because there went hence to heaven the prayers of 
Sewall, and Prince, and the early saints of the colony. We 
come to save walls that heard and stirred the eloquence of 
Quincy, — that keen blade which so soon wore out the scab- 
bard, — determined, " under God, that wheresoever, whenso- 
ever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we 
WILL DIE FREEMEN ! " Thesc archcs will speak to us, as long 
as they stand, of the sublime and sturdy religious enthusiasm 
of Adams ; of Otis's passionate eloquence and single-hearted 
devotion ; of Warren in his young genius and enthusiasm ; 
of a plain, unaffected, but high-souled people, who ventured 
all for a principle, and to transmit to us, unimpared, the free 
lips and self-government which they inherited. Above and 
around us, unseen hands have written, " This is the cradle of 
Civil Liberty, child of earnest religious faith." I will not say 
it is a nobler consecration : I will not say that it is a better 
use. I only say we come here to save what our fathers con- 
secrated to the memories of the most successful struggle the 
race has ever made for the liberties of man. You spend half a 
million for a schoolhouse. What school so eloquent as these 
walls to educate citizens .'' Napoleon turned his Simplon road 
aside to save a tree Caesar had once mentioned. Won't you 
turn a street or spare a quarter of an acre to remind boys 
what sort of men their fathers were ? Think twice before you 
touch these walls. We are only the world's trustees. The 
Old South no more belongs to us than Luther's, or Hamp- 
den's, or Brutus's name does to Germany, England, or Rome. 
Each and all are held in trust as torchlight guides and in- 
spiration for any man struggling for justice, and ready to die 
for the truth. 



I went to Chicago more than twenty years ago ; and they 
showed me the log-house, thirty feet square and twenty feet 
high, in which the first officer of the United States, the first 
white man, lived, where now are half a million of human be- 
ings. There it nestled amid spacious inns, costly ware- 
houses, and luxurious homes I said to them, " Why not cover 
it with plate-glass, and let it stand there forever, the cradle 
of the great city of the lakes ? " But I could not wake any 
sentiment in that quarter-million of traders ; and the ances- 
tral cabin which, to an anointed eye, measured the vast space 
between that 1816 and 1856, with its wealth and splendor, 
passed away. Then I came back here. That same week I 
found at my door a slaveholder from Arkansas. Singularly 
enough, in those bitter years, he trusted himself to me as a 
guide through the historic scenes of Boston. But it shows 
you how true it is that a prophet has no honor in his own 
household ; how his reputation grows the farther off you 
get! Well, the first place I took him to was the house of 
John Hancock. We ascended those steps. I had learned 
from his talk, that, on that frontier where he was born, he 
had never seen a building older than twenty-five years. As 
we stood under that balcony, which some of you may re- 
member, he turned to me, and said, " Is it actually true that 
the man who signed the Declaration of Independence stood 
on this flagstone, and lifted that latch ?" I said, "Yes, sir; 
and above you, his body lay in state for some six or eight 
days." The man sat down on the flagstone, wholly unnerved, 
his face pale with emotion. Said he, " You must excuse me ; 
but I never felt as I feel to-day." That was Boston reveal- 
ing to an every-day life the patriotism and nobleness smoth- 
ered by petty cares. He came to our streets to wake that 
throb in his nature ; he grew a better man and a more chival- 
rous citizen when that thrill answered to the memory of the 
first signer of the Declaration. 

Gentlemen, these walls are the college for such training. 
The saving of this landmark is the best monument you can 
erect to the men of the Revolution. You spend $40,000 
here, and $20,000 there, to put up a statue of some old hero ; 
you want your son to gaze on the nearest approach to the 



lO 

features of those "dead but sceptred sovereigns who still 
rule our spirits from their urns." But what is a statue of 
Cicero compared to standing where your voice echoes from 
pillar and wall that actually heard his philippics ! How much 
better than a picture of John Brown is the sight of that Blue 
Ridge which filled his eye, when, riding to the scaffold, he 
said calmly to his jailer, "This is a beautiful country; I 
never noticed it before." Destroy every portrait of Luther, 
if you must, but save that terrible chamber where he fought 
with the Devil, and translated the Bible. Scholars have 
grown old and blind, striving to put their hands on the very 
spot where bold men spoke, or brave men died : shall we 
tear in pieces the roof that actually trembled to the words 
which made us a nation ? It is impossible not to believe, if 
the spirits above us are permitted to know what passes in 
this terrestrial sphere, that Adams, and Warren, and Otis are 
to-day bending over us, asking that the scene of their immortal 
labors shall not be desecrated, or blotted from the sight of men. 

Consecrate it again, in the worship and memory of a 
people ! Consecrate it, in order that, if another rebellion 
breaks out against the flag ; if our young men need once more 
to have their hearts quickened to the sublime significance of 
the Republic which protects them ; if once more we must 
rally flags and marshall ranks for the protection of liberty, — 
the young men shall be able to look up to Faneuil Hall, and the 
Old State House, and these walls, as a quickening inspiration, 
before they leave these streets to go down and show them- 
selves worthy of their fathers. Let these walls stand, if only 
to remind us that, in those days, Adams and Otis, advocates 
of the newest and extremest liberty, found their sturdiest 
allies in the pulpit ; that our Revolution was so much a 
crusade, that the Church led the van. 

Summon it again, ye venerable walls, to its true place in 
the world's toil for good. Give us Mayhews and Coopers 
again ; and let the children of the Pilgrims show that reli- 
gious conviction, veneration for "the great of old," and a 
stern purpose that our flag shall everywhere and always 
mean justice, are a threefold cord holding this nation to- 
gether, never to be broken. We have a great future before 



1 1 

ns,= — how grand, human forecast cannot measure, — yes, a 
great future, endangered by many and grave perils. Our 
way out of these, faith believes in, but mortal eye cannot see. 
It is wisdom to summon every ally, to save every possible 
help. Educate the people to noble purpose. Lift them to 
the level of the highest motive. Enforce by every possible 
appeal the influence of the finest elements of our nature. 
Let the great ideas, — self-respect, freedom, justice, self- 
sacrifice, — help each man to tread the body under his feet. 
This worship of great memories, noble deeds, sacred places, 
— the poetry of history, — is one of the keenest ripeners of 
such elements. Seize greedily on every chance to save and 
emphasize these. 

Give me a people freshly and tenderly alive to such in- 
fluences, and I will laugh at money-rings or demagogues 
armed with sensual temptations. Men marvelled at the up- 
rising which hurled slavery to the dust. It was young men 
who dreamed dreams over patriot graves — enthusiasts 
wrapped in memories ! Marble, gold, and granite are not 
real: the only actual reality is an idea. 

Gentlemen, I remember — Mr. Chairman, you will remem- 
ber, also — that some six months ago the Mayor and Aldermen 
debated how they should use some $i8,coo or $20,000 left 
them by Jonathan Phillips to ornament the streets of Boston ; 
and then the City Government decided — and decided very 
properly — that they could do no better with that money than 
place before the people a statue of the great mayor, Josiah 
Quincy, to whom this city owes so much. It was a very 
worthy vote under those circumstances ; but if the great 
mayor were living to-day, he would be here with the 
Massachusetts . Yes, he would be here, Mr. Chair- 
man, with the Massachusetts Historical Society in his right 
hand, and the Mechanic Association in the other, and he 
would protest against the use of a dollar of that money 
for his personal honor until it had been first used to 
save this immortal legacy. I wish that I had a voice 
in that aldermanic corps, I would propose, with no discredit 
to the great mayor — let no one tear a leaf from his 
well-earned laurels! — but it was the mechanics of Boston 



LlBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



12 



014 014 368 6 A 



that threw tea into the dock ; it was the mechanics of 
Boston that held up the hands of Sam Adams ; it was the 
mechanics of Boston, Paul Revere one of them, that made 
the Green Dragon immortal, — and I would take that $iS,ooo 
and add $50,000 more, and let the city preserve this building 
as a Mechanics' Exchange for all time. The merchants have 
their gilded room, fit gathering-place for consultations ; but 
the men that carried us through the Revolution — caulkers! 
why, some men think we borrowed caucus from their name! — 
the men that carried us through the Revolution, were the 
mechanics of Boston. Where do they gather to-day? On 
the sidewalks and pavements of Court Street, in the open 
air! We owe them a debt, in memory of what this grand 
movement, in its cradle, owed to them. I would ally the 
Green Dragon Tavern and the Sons of Liberty with the Old 
South, the grandsons, and great-grandsons, and representa- 
tives of the men who made the bulk of that meeting before 
which Hutchinson quailed, and Col. Dalrymple put on his hat 
and left the Council Chamber. 

It was the message of the mechanics of Boston that Sam 
Adams carried to the Governor and to Congress. They sent 
him to Salem and Philadelphia: they lifted and held him 
up till even purblind George III. could distinguish his ablest 
opposer, and learned to hate with discrimination. 

Shelter them under this roof; consecrate it in its original 
form to a grand public use for the common run of the 
people, — the bone and muscle. It will be the normal school 
of politics. It will be the best civil-service reform agency 
that the Republican party can adopt and use to-day. 

The influence of these old walls will prevent men, if 
anything can, from becoming the tools of corruption or 
tyranny. " Recall every day one good thought — read ooe 
fine line," says the German Shakespeare. Yes ; let every 
man's daily walk catch one ray of golden light, and his pulse 
throb once each day nobly, as he passes these walls ! No 
gold, no greed, can canker the heart of such a people. Once 
in their hands, neither need, greed, nor the clamor for wider 
streets, will ever desecrate what Adams, and Warren, and 
Otis made sacred to the liberties of man ! 



LlbH/ 



Llbl-IAHY Uf- UUNUKtbb 



014 014 368 6 ^ 



Hollinger 



